With Disney picking up LucasFilms, we all knew there would be big changes in the world that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. First, of course, was the epic announcement that Abrams was set to direct and produce the next ‘Star Wars’ film which caused quite a stir on the Internet. News on ‘Star Wars’ didnt’ stop there as Bob Iger announced ‘Star Wars’ stand-alone films which would take major and minor ‘Star Wars’ characters and have them star in their own spin-off film.
All of that’s great, but it also looks like they are making some major shakeups to the animated ‘Star Wars’ portion of the franchise. There are three major announcements that were made today. Depending how you look at it, I would say there’s one good and two bad announcements here.
Let’s get the bitter pills out of the way first.
Fan of ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’? Well it’s going to soon be time to say goodbye. While the series is coming to a close on television there is going to be a bit more life in it to properly wrap up.
Second up isn’t quite as bad. We’re not hearing about a cancellation here but more of a delay. Seth Green was given permission to make his own animated show ‘Star Wars: Detours’. While the show is still supposedly going to happen, Disney felt that a comedy themed ‘Star Wars’ show wasn’t the best series to launch prior to the next trilogy.
Finally the good news straight from the press release that we can get excited about:
“As we enter into an exciting new era focused on the next ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programming. We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in ‘Star Wars’ films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come.”
A whole new time period? Right before a trilogy set in the future as some of our actors have aged a little? While there’s no set word, I’m going to say it’s a pretty easy guess that this will either be a series to bridge the ‘original’ trilogy and the new one or the animated series will take place in the time of the new one.
I was a huge fan of ‘The Clone Wars’ and will be sad to see it officially go. Honestly though, there was only so much more of it they could truly do without making it feel as if they were trying to do space fillers. Sure it was a show targeted at kids but let’s be honest – plenty of the 20-30 year old crowd watched it either from being ‘Star Wars’ fans or having kids that they’ve introduced to it. I’m not terribly broken up about the ‘Detours’ series taking a detour to a later date, though. I love what Seth Green puts out but with the prospect of expanding the ‘Star War’s universe into the future (even if it was a long time ago) I’m all in!
